


The Not-Tumor

by musicmillennia



Series: The Enterprise Wing [4]
Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dragons, Canonical Character Death, Dragon Riders, Gay Love Saved James T. Kirk, Gen, Multi, Other, Soul Bond, Telepathic Bond, Temporary Character Death, The Author Has No Medical Experience, but blatantly ignoring the canonical shit that happens after the death, suspend your disbelief
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-13
Updated: 2020-07-13
Packaged: 2021-03-04 21:06:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,639
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25242865
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/musicmillennia/pseuds/musicmillennia
Summary: Who died and grew a dragon?(Or, how Davey came to be.)
Relationships: James T. Kirk & Leonard "Bones" McCoy, James T. Kirk/Leonard "Bones" McCoy, James T. Kirk/Spock, Leonard "Bones" McCoy & David "Davey" McCoy (OC Dragon)
Series: The Enterprise Wing [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1815928
Comments: 14
Kudos: 73





	The Not-Tumor

**Author's Note:**

> honestly i still don't know how to rate the non-E/M stuff so like. Just go with it? pls
> 
> another thing to pls tolerate: i know nothing about medical stuff. if you do and this makes you cringe, just remember: super blood serum is Canon in STID. It could be Worse. so much worse

Losing Jim is losing his world again. Only this time he can’t fight for custody, can’t stand in front of a judge and convince them to give him back.

He collapses into the nearest chair. When Celestia’s roaring shakes the entire ship, he doesn’t react. When they break the doors down, he doesn’t look up. He wants to roar with them, but the grief stubbornly lodges itself in his chest. For the first time in years, his hands are shaking.

Then Spock’s sprinting in and snapping, “Meld with us!”

He’s disheveled. That’s the only word Leonard can think when he looks at him. Spock’s breathing harsh and loud, his eyes daggers. Amanda’s at his back, just as intense.

Celestia recoils with a snarl.

“There is no time!” Spock shouts, he’s _shouting_ , “We must save Jim!”

Leonard’s chest burns.

Celestia shoves their head towards Spock’s fingers.

“We need silence,” Spock orders.

Leonard can only say, “Okay.”

Three pairs of eyes squeeze shut. Leonard grips the arms of his chair. The Tribble’s cooing startles him so bad he almost falls.

An idea crosses his mind. He soundly dismisses it, wrenching his gaze back to Spock. Spock can do this—whatever it is—and Leonard won’t have to…he can’t even think it.

Celestia keens.

In the body bag, Jim jack-knifes back to life.

* * *

The bond formed on Tarsus IV, the exchange of flesh, kept the last piece of Jim in Celestia from dying. That’s the short version of Spock’s explanation, with a few Vulcan words like _katra_ thrown in that Leonard can barely process.

Jim spends the next week hidden in his dragon’s wings, curled as tightly as he can with the tubes Leonard’s been forced to attach since he’s refused a biobed. Occasionally, he gasps and coughs, like he’s coming back all over again, and Celestia trills for the next ten minutes to calm him down.

The lump in Leonard’s chest doesn’t abate. Worry feeds it, not helped by the burst of panic that comes whenever he leaves Jim’s room. He keeps telling himself that he’s done all he can, that Boyce has taken over, and there’s no one better than him.

So, in his defense, he has no way of knowing something’s physically wrong until he collapses in the middle of the hospital.

* * *

Something’s growing from Leonard’s heart.

It’s about the size of a golf ball, and it doesn’t read as a tumor. Boyce has never seen anything like it, and he’s served with Pike. They have to open him up to take a look.

When Leonard wakes from surgery, groggy as hell, Boyce and the nurses are talking rapidly. The second he makes a noise, Boyce is white-knuckling his shoulder and saying, “It’s an egg.”

Leonard blinks once, twice.

Boyce’s eyes are wide. “We don’t know how. There’s no medical explanation for it. But it’s a dragon egg, Leonard.”

When Leonard’s calmed down from absolute panic to mild wheezing, Boyce gives him two options: risk letting the egg grow and almost certainly killing him, or take the egg out and almost certainly killing the dragon, whose shell is nowhere near developed enough to sustain them.

Leonard stares at his hands. If the egg formed when he thinks it did, that’s two weeks and three days. Dragon eggs need at least three before they exit the dam. They grow rapidly; by the end of those three weeks, the eggs are about the size of a man’s fist, and they’ll keep growing outside the dam until they’re as long as a man’s arm.

A fist-sized ball crushing his heart.

Unless.

“Can you move it?”

“What?” Boyce says.

Leonard touches his chest. He imagines he can feel it. “Can you move it somewhere else?”

“Leonard, it’s risky enough to remove—”

“Damn it, Boyce, can you do it or not?”

Boyce looks eerily like Scotty when Jim asks him to do something insane with the engines. “In theory, _maybe_ , but where the hell would we put it? It’s not like you have a womb, Leonard.”

“My back.”

“ _What_?”

“You can attach it to my back. Don’t ask me why,” Leonard snaps, “I don’t—it’s a feeling.”

Boyce glances at his chest. “A feeling, huh?”

Leonard glares at him. “So?”

“…I. I can _try_. But there are absolutely no guarantees, do you understand?”

“Yeah.”

Boyce sighs. “I’ll—see what I can do.” He shakes his head. “How is it the _Enterprise_ always gets the crazy ones?”

* * *

“Bones!”

Leonard groans. “Jim, I’m sleeping.”

It’s wonderful to see Jim, though. Hanging loosely on Celestia’s back, yes, but awake and alert. The lump—the _egg_ —seems to loosen at the sight of him.

“They won’t tell us anything,” Jim says, “Just that you collapsed and there’s something wrong—what is it? Is it serious?”

“Calm down,” Leonard mutters, “Boyce is gonna fix it.”

“Fix _what_?” Celestia demands.

“I’ll tell you when it’s over.”

Jim’s eyes flash. “Bones—”

“I mean it, Jim.”

Chapel, bless her, rushes in to corral Captain and dragon out. They both kick up a terrible fuss, but Chapel’s faced far worse by now.

Jim finally directs Celestia out, but there’s determination in the set of his shoulders. Leonard hopes Boyce is up to it.

* * *

Here’s how it goes:

Boyce carefully, _carefully_ goes to remove the egg, only to watch it _detach_ from Leonard’s heart the second he touches it. There are thin, strange appendages sticking out of the shell, writhing like tiny worms. Once Boyce opens Leonard’s back, all it takes is a gentle press, and the egg settles right into the meat of Leonard’s back.

It’s completely unprecedented and Boyce finally has something that’s even more shocking than any of Christopher Pike’s exploits on the _Enterprise_.

He opens the door to the entire Alpha bridge crew and their dragons’ expectant stares.

Boyce finally tells them the weird, crazy thing that is Leonard McCoy’s dragon egg.

“That is impossible,” Spock says plainly.

“You’re tellin’ me,” Boyce says, “but you’ll see for yourself as soon as I can clear ‘im. Just be careful not to stress him—bad enough I had to leave it in him, even if it’s not in a life-threatening spot.”

Since Jim can’t seem to speak, Spock thanks Boyce on behalf of the _Enterprise_. Boyce returns to his patient and fantasizes about a drink.

* * *

“Don’t _poke_ it.”

“I’m not!”

“Yes you are.”

“Am not!”

“You’re such a— _stop_!”

“Sorry! It’s just—”

“I know.” Leonard sighs. “Trust me, I know.”

Jim’s hand rests on the ridges of Leonard’s spine, a little ways from the egg.

Leonard answers the unspoken question. “I think it happened when you died. I’d…never felt anything like that in my life.”

Faintly, he hears Jim say, “Always told you your heart’s too big.”

Leonard snorts. Celestia gently bumps his forehead. “Sorry I didn’t tell yah. Couldn’t risk stressing us both out.”

“Was definitely stressed either way.”

“Better n’ knowing my heart was getting crushed.”

“You still should’ve told me.”

Leonard waves him off. Soon, he’s falling asleep to Jim drawing shapes on his back.

* * *

The egg decides to hatch _in Leonard’s skin_ , so that’s fun.

“Ow, ow, _fucking ow_!”

No time for drugs. Boyce has to cut him open ASAP. Is this what women go through? Probably not, but holy _shit_ —

A small incision, and Leonard’s back _tears_ open. Leonard shouts every curse he can think of. It’s a long list.

Then, something slimy is curling against his chest.

“What the _hell_?” Leonard mutters, “Couldn’t’ve waited?”

They should’ve waited, anyway. This dragon is way too premature. Then again, they grew from a human’s organ, so what the hell does he know?

They blink up at him, and wow. That is.

Cute.

He’s half-delirious when he says, “You’re just a little darlin’, ain’tcha?”

The dragon coos.

Leonard finally gets his painkillers.

* * *

The hatchling’s a bulky little thing, his eyes big as a toad’s and disconcertingly similar to Leonard’s own brown. Dragons usually have grand names, but Leonard can’t think of anything beyond _hospital_ and _family_.

David likes his name. He also likes to cuddle. Leonard’s too tired to pretend he doesn’t like it either.

“Home,” David murmurs into his neck. Despite all the Frisco accents, it sounds like he’s picked up a Georgian drawl.

Wait.

Leonard jolts. Jim jumps to his feet, demanding what’s wrong.

“You didn’t hear that?”

“Hear what?”

“He just _talked_!”

David purrs and snuggles closer.

Jim’s brow furrows. “No he didn’t. Unless you can understand growling?”

“Perhaps their bond is a tad unconventional,” Celestia suggests, “Given the circumstances, it should be expected.”

Leonard rears his head back to look at David better. “Talk again.”

David’s big eyes blink open. Fuck. He is _adorable_. “What should I say?”

Leonard looks at Jim.

“Yeah, we didn’t get a word ‘a that,” Jim says, “Should I get Boyce?”

“…not yet.” Leonard sighs and settles back down. “I don’t _feel_ any different. Brain scans came back normal.”

Celestia’s eyes narrow. “Perhaps…it’s not in your brain?”

“What the hell does that mean?”

* * *

“You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me.”

“Bones! There are hatchlings present!”

Boyce pats Leonard’s shoulder. “Thought Jim Kirk was supposed to be the weird one, McCoy.”

“How is this possible?” Leonard demands, “The bond is a _brain function_. Frequencies syncing in the human’s subconscious. The heart is physically incapable of replicating the process.”

“Oo, I love when you talk medical,” Jim says.

“Shut up, Jim!”

“Well, the heart _does_ have a frequency,” Boyce says, “I can scan David’s too.”

David’s heart, it turns out, matches Leonard’s. They even beat at the exact same pace, down to the nanosecond.

“Fuck,” David says.

Leonard can’t help glancing Jim’s way. Jim, of course, picks up on it, eyes narrowing.

“He just said fuck, didn’t he.”

“Fuck,” David repeats. He is very pleased with himself.

“ _Bones_.”

“Fuck off, Jim.”


End file.
